is back on the mass
even amidst the solemnities of his coronation, he never stirred on a
journey without hanging relics round his neck. But with the wickedness of
his race he inherited its profound ability. His plan for the relief of
Chateau Gaillard, the rapid march by which he shattered Arthur's hopes at
Mirebeau, showed an inborn genius for war. In the rapidity and breadth of
his political combinations he far surpassed the statesmen of his time.
Throughout his reign we see him quick to discern the difficulties of his
position, and inexhaustible in the resources with which he met them. The
overthrow of his continental power only spurred him to the formation of a
league which all but brought Philip to the ground; and the sudden revolt
of England was parried by a shameless alliance with the Papacy. The
closer study of John's history clears away the charges of sloth and
incapacity with which men tried to explain the greatness of his fall. The
awful lesson of his life rests on the fact that the king who lost
Normandy, became the vassal of the Pope, and perished in a struggle of
despair against English freedom, was no weak and indolent voluptuary but
the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins.

[Sidenote: Innocent the Third]

From the moment of his return to England in 1204 John's whole energies
were bent to the recovery of his dominions on the Continent. He
impatiently collected money and men for the support of those adherents of
the House of Anjou who were still struggling against the arms of France
in Poitou and Guienne, and in the summer of 1205 he gathered an army at
Portsmouth and prepared to cross the Channel. But his project was
suddenly thwarted by the resolute opposition of the Primate, Hubert
Walter, and the Earl of Pembroke, William Marshal. So completely had both
the baronage and the Church been humbled by his father that the attitude
of their representatives revealed to the king a new spirit of national
freedom which was rising around him, and John at once braced himself to a
struggle with it. The death of Hubert Walter in July, only a few weeks
after his protest, removed his most formidable opponent, and the king
resolved to neutralize the opposition of the Church by placing a creature
of his own at its head. John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, was elected by
the monks of Canterbury at his bidding, and enthroned as Primate. But in
a previous though informal gathering the convent had already chosen its
sub-pr